Olivia Chow speaks after meeting with refugees, asylum seekers in Toronto | LIVE

Mayor Olivia Chow will speak to reporters Friday after visiting refugee and asylum seekers who, over the past two weeks, have been housed at Toronto churches after it emerged that they had been forced to camp out on city streets.

Dozens of people had been living in tents along Richmond and Peter streets outside of a city intake centre due to an ongoing funding battle between the City of Toronto and the federal government. On Tuesday, the city said it had designated shelter spaces for more than 200 asylum seekers, responding to the rising number of refugee claimants on city streets, which Mayor Chow has called a crisis.

Last week, Chow secured unanimous approval on a motion to designate the spaces during her first council meeting as the city's leader, with officials revealing the number of asylum seekers in Toronto's shelter system grew by 500 per cent in 20 months.

The city is also encouraging property owners with available rental units to help provide much-needed housing for refugee claimants.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/9856298/toronto-shelters-asylum-seekers/

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